Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft
When we speak of craft, our mind tends to wander to the artisanal heritage crafts that Sri Lanka is most famous for, such as handloom, batik, or beeralu lace. However, craft isn’t relegated only to these heritage crafts; there are so many others that can form the basis of gratifying hobbies and even form the basis of businesses.
This week, The Sunday Morning Brunch chatted with Ishara Fouzar Hassim, the Founder of Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft. Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft teaches a variety of handwork techniques including patchwork, hand embroidery, ribbon embroidery, and the making of small gift items, to name a few.
Hassim’s introduction to these alternative forms of craft came over 25 years ago, when she first took her daughter for lessons in these different types of handwork. Before this, Hassim had already experimented for years with different types of handwork, a lot of which her daughter was also familiar with.
“My daughter was learning under Mrs. Daisy Vittachi. In class, she would talk about how ‘my mama also does these things’. When the children were going to school, I had to drop them off and pick them up and during that time I would also go to learn from Mrs. Vittachi,” Hassim said of her beginnings when it came to taking the different things she did at home more seriously.
Eventually, Hassim began participating in exhibitions and even won awards for her embroidery (including the award of Embroidery Queen at the 2012 ‘Share the Joy’ all island exhibition and Arpico Queen at the 2014 ‘Share the Joy’ all island exhibition) and for her entrepreneurial spirit. She joined Vittachi as a teacher at her school of hobby craft, which at the time had 15 branches. Eventually, upon her migration to Australia, Vittachi handed over the school to Hassim to run in her own name, which is how Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft came to be born.
Over the last 10 years, Hassim has formed a small brand within Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft – ‘Sew with Love’ – which allows her to work with a small group of women to take on professional orders for items which feature the different craft capabilities of Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft. These crafts include, among others, patchwork, hand embroidery, ribbon embroidery, hand-painting, shoe craft, java batik, recycling and upcycling, and a lot of different embroidery techniques.
“I do classes in Colombo 5, Colombo 7, and in Wattala, and nearly 15 ladies join me. Some are self-employed, some are outstation, and some have gone on to start classes and schools of their own,” Hassim shared. “These days there is a lot of focus on Christmas crafts. From mid-November up until Christmas it is very popular.”
Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft covers a diverse range of embroidery techniques from all around the world, giving students the chance to really develop their hand skills and their creative skills as well as to create unique products that showcase their individual styles.
The next step for Hassim is to make a bigger impact. Recently, she has been focusing her attention on building the name of Ishara’s School of Hobby Craft within the Good Market, a platform for small businesses that empower communities.
“I want to take hobby craft to the ladies in rural areas,” Hassim explained. “There are lots of ladies with no easy income and I want to start showing them there are ways to gain side incomes where they don’t depend solely on their husbands. I want to show them that I’m here and they can also enter such a field with their own names.”
Hassim is also committed to helping these women make it: “Next year, I want to do free workshops and if women have products they want to sell, I want to help. I won’t be able to do it in one shot. Of course, I’ll have to look at things like neatness and colours, but I can help them price and sell. It’s very important to know how to price things. These things can be expensive because the whole thing is done by hand. Some will try to sell at bigger prices, but this won’t always work.”
With the Christmas season now almost over and 2023 fast approaching, Hassim’s plans to take these alternative crafts to all parts of Sri Lanka is likely to help boost and build business in small communities mainly through uplifting women. As the saying goes, uplifting women uplifts communities.
